On 8 September 2024, in an operation called Operation Many Ways (Hebrew: מבצע רבות הדרכים), Israeli special forces raided an underground missile production facility at a branch of Syria's Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) near Masyaf in the country's northwest. The raid was covered by airstrikes that killed at least eighteen people according to state media. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that 27 people were killed.

The targeted facility was used by Iran to supply precision-guided missiles to its allies, including the Syrian government and Lebanese Hezbollah. The raid was carried out by commandos from the Israeli Air Force's (IAF) elite Shaldag Unit. In a nearly three-hour operation, the commandos landed at the site by helicopter, where they raided the facility and planted explosives inside. After they left, the explosives were detonated, destroying the facility. The operation is regarded as one of Israel's most complex in its history.

The raid was initially reported by The New York Times and Axios in September 2024, citing Western officials. It was confirmed by Israel in January 2025.

The SOHR and Western intelligence agencies had previously identified the SSRC as responsible for Syrian chemical weapons and missile development programs. The former also claimed that Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers had been stationed at the site for the last six years, which Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani refused to confirm or deny. The Israeli operation was reportedly planned as a ground raid after airstrikes over the preceding years had pushed Hezbollah and Iran—involved in a long-running conflict with Israel that has intenfisied amid the Gaza war—to move their operations underground.

Israel has carried out airstrikes in Syria since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011 against weapon shipments to Hezbollah and Iranian forces. Masyaf, west of the city of Hama, was used by Iran-aligned forces as a base and was repeatedly struck by Israel. Israeli airstrikes escalated since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023 in response to attacks on northern Israel mostly by Hezbollah from Lebanon and Syria. At the time of the Masyaf raid, the SOHR reported that over 60 Israeli strikes hit Syria since the beginning of 2024. The strikes destroyed or damaged 140 targets and killed 230 people; 208 fighters and 22 civilians.

According to the IDF, the target of the raid, codenamed "Deep Layer", was an underground precision-guided missile facility used by Iran to manufacture weapons for Hezbollah in Lebanon, Bashar al-Assad's forces in Syria, and other Iranian proxies. Located within a mountain at the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) in Masyaf, it was over 200 kilometres (120 mi) north of Israel. The area had one of the greatest concentrations of air defenses in Syria, second only to Damascus, at the time of the raid. The facility was 70–130 metres (230–430 ft) underground and shaped as a horseshoe, and its walls were made from reinforced concrete. Its distance underground made it difficult to destroy from the sky. The facility had three entrances in total: an entrance embedded into the mountainside for raw materials, a nearby exit used to ship completed missiles, and an adjacent entrance that provided access to the office section within the facility, which was linked to the manufacturing area. At least 16 rooms were dedicated to missile production, including planetary mixers for rocket fuel, missile body manufacturing, and paint rooms.

According to the IDF, the facility was planned by Iran in 2017, following an Israeli airstrike on SSRC that year that destroyed an above-ground rocket engine site. Many of the weapons in Hezbollah's arsenal were supplied by the facility. Following its destruction, and other Israeli strikes on weapons shipments to Hezbollah, Iran decided to build a facility underground to protect it from Israeli attacks. Iran began digging out the mountain at the SSRC in late 2017, and construction was completed by 2021. The IDF said that it had information on the site as soon as construction began. Following its completion, Iran shipped equipment used for the mass production of missiles to the facility, and later began carrying out tests on the production line. The IDF predicted that the facility would replace Iran's method of delivering missiles and missile parts via truck from its own territory to Lebanon given its proximity to the Lebanese border. These shipments were often targeted by Israel.

The IDF said that the facility was not fully active by the time it launched its operation, but had already successfully manufactured at least two missiles and mass-produced rocket engines. An IDF estimate stated that the facility had the potential to produce 100–300 missiles yearly upon completion, ranging from short-range rockets with ranges of 40–70 kilometres (25–43 mi) to rockets with a range of up to 130 kilometres (81 mi).